


Kiss Me, Kink Me, Kill Me: a Captain John Watson mystery

by abundantlyqueer



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:33:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abundantlyqueer/pseuds/abundantlyqueer





	1. Chapter 1

 

The evening is deepening into real darkness as the black taxi cab pulls up on a quiet, tree-lined street. The rain has stopped, but the cab’s windows are beaded with water, and the pavement gleams under its headlights. 

John gets out of the back of the cab, frowning dubiously as he surveys his surroundings. 

“You sure this is it?” he asks the cab driver, as he glances down to extract a banknote from his wallet.

“Three hundred an’ twenty-four Royalston Road, right there,” the cab driver says, nodding at a high brick wall and a pair of gateposts topped by two stone lions. 

“Right, cheers,” John says with a sour little quirk of his mouth.

He gives the roof of the cab an emphatic pat of dismissal, and steps back as it pulls away. He turns, tucking his wallet back inside his black wool coat, and walks through the open gateway. 

The house is a late Victorian slab of red brick, with just enough Gothic pretensions to run to stone window arches and leaded window panes. John puts his hands in his coat pockets and rounds his shoulders against the sharpening chill in the air. He walks up the wet gravel driveway, up the broad steps to the arched stone porch, and hauls on the iron bell handle beside the wood paneled front door. He glances over the façade of the house, his eyes narrowed under the fall of his fair hair onto his forehead.

The front door is opened by a very lovely young woman, with waves of glossy brown hair falling loosely over her shoulders and a matte black dress clinging tightly to the rest of her curves. 

“ _Hello_ ,” John says, his intonation sliding downwards along with his gaze. “I’m - ”

“Captain Watson,” the young woman says as she steps back from the threshold. “Yes, I know.”

“John,” John says, entering the house. “I’m John.”

“This way, please,” the young woman says, closing the front door and crossing the entrance hall beneath the elaborately coffered ceiling.

“That’s quite some architecture,” John says, contemplating the flex of her spine and the sway her hips as he follows her to another wood paneled door.

She glances back at him, one perfectly shaped eyebrow raised, as she opens the interior door to reveal a sober but luxurious sitting room.

John hesitates on the threshold, glancing at the heraldic blazons on the upper window panes and the suits of armor against the far wall.

“Mister Holmes will be with you in a moment,” the young woman says, looking John up and down speculatively when he moves past her. 

“You’re not going to stay and keep an eye on me?” John asks, the corners of his mouth curling slightly.

“No, but I’ll make sure to count the spoons before you go,” she says archly, and pulls the door closed after her. 

John unbuttons his coat, turning round as he takes a second, more considered survey of the furnishings – flawlessly maintained antiques, set off by some quietly ostentatious new things. The door opens again to admit a tall man in a precisely tailored gray three piece suit. He’s soft featured, with a fluff of receding auburn hair, but there’s an undisguised hardness to his pale blue eyes.

“Captain Watson,” he says, extending his hand and baring his teeth as he approaches. “I’m Mycroft Holmes.”

“It’s just Mister Watson now,” John says, as his small, calloused hand is grasped briefly in Mycroft’s larger, smoother one. “How do you do.”

“ _Doctor_ , then … do please sit down,” Mycroft says, his mouth twitching as he gestures to one of the armchairs in front of the arched stone fireplace. “Make yourself comfortable.”

John sweeps his coat back from his hips and sits down, composing himself with a hand on one armrest and his back not touching the armchair’s upholstery, while Mycroft picks up a large manila envelope from one of the side tables and offers it to John.

“What exactly is it I can do for you, Mister Holmes?” John asks, accepting the envelope.

Mycroft raises his eyebrows, purses his lips, and looks pointedly at the envelope in John’s hand. John sighs slightly, untucks the envelope flap, and extracts several glossy eight by ten photographs. His mouth falls open slightly, and his eyelids lift and then droop fractionally as he parses the topmost image: a slender young man with luminously pale skin and a headful of dark curls, lying on an unmade bed. His face is averted from the camera’s gaze, but the lights and shadows model his naked body with perfect clarity – the bright angles of shoulder and hip and bent knee, the shadowed hollows of cheekbone and throat and chest. Stark against the radiant smoothness of sheets and skin and silky hair, a length of roughly fibrous rope trails from around his left wrist. 

John lifts his eyes from the image as Mycroft sits down with elaborate calm in the armchair opposite. John shuffles to the second photograph in the sheaf and looks down again. The same young man, kneeling on the same bed: his face is averted again, but John can make out a crescent of dark eyelashes beneath the shadow of his curls, and the broad blade of one cheekbone. The young man’s arms are drawn together into a long, slender vee from his shoulders to his roped wrists hanging between his thighs. The smooth pale skin of his left bicep is striped by three thin, red welts.

John exhales carefully, and slips the photograph to the back of the sheaf, revealing the last image: the young man’s face and bare torso. His mouth – a ridiculous elaboration of lush curves and sharp corners – is half open, but his eyes are almost closed, just a sliver of each pale iris visible beneath the dark fringes of his eyelashes. There’s a dull red mark across the bridge of his nose, and his right nostril is lined with a crust of blood. On the long, strong column of his neck, his white skin is marked by five unmistakable bruised ovals – a thumb print on one side of his throat, and four finger prints on the other. John turns the photograph facedown onto the others.

“They’re lovely,” he says, his voice steady but slightly glottal. “ _He’s_ lovely; you’re a very lucky man.”

“He’s my younger brother Sherlock,” Mycroft says.

John’s expression tumbles through surprise and interest before recomposing into mild receptiveness.

“These pictures were taken by a … _friend_ , of his,” Mycroft says, his nose wrinkling slightly. “These, and many more a great deal less … tasteful.”

“And you disapprove,” John says.

“Of the pictures?” Mycroft says.

“Of the friend,” John says.

“I - ” Mycroft begins loudly, but he stops, and when he speaks again it’s more quietly but with absolute conviction. “I know that my brother does not enjoy the activities depicted in these photographs.”

“Perhaps he enjoys his friend’s enjoyment of them,” John counters.

“Sherlock is not a generous man,” Mycroft says, his mouth curling humorlessly. “Indeed, his indifference to the happiness of others is quite marvelous.”

“You think he’s being coerced,” John says gently.

“I – there have been periods in the past when Sherlock’s ability to withhold his consent might have been considered … impaired,” Mycroft says.

“ … impaired by - ?” John prompts.

“His … _habits_ ,” Mycroft says, his gaze flickering uncomfortably but not quite abandoning John’s. “His … way of life.”

“I see,” John says. “Well, what does Sherlock have to say about it? Is he - ”

“He’s not going to tell _me_ anything,” Mycroft smiles. “We don’t have that kind of relationship.”

“No,” John says, “I suppose not.”

“But I am worried about him,” Mycroft says, his voice deepening and softening again. “He does … attract attention, and not all of it well meaning.”

“So you want me to check up on him,” John says, “make sure he’s okay.”

“That is what you do, isn’t it?” Mycroft says, extracting a slim leather-bound notebook from inside his suit jacket. “You make sure that people are … okay?”

“I try,” John says, his eyes flicking away from Mycroft’s for a split second. 

“It would be best if you _didn’t_ mention my involvement,” Mycroft says with a heavy exhalation, as he begins to write something down. “Any reminder of my existence only seems to act as an irritant. He’s looking for someone to share a flat with him – he’s mentioned it to several people. This - ” he tears the page from his notebook and hands it to John, “ – is his telephone number.”

“Right,” John says, glancing at the piece of paper before tucking it away inside his coat.

He slips the photographs back into their envelope and holds it out to Mycroft.

“Take them with you,” Mycroft says. “I … prefer not to have them.”

John frowns slightly, but he nods and lets his hand drop back to his thigh. Mycroft gets up from his chair, and John does likewise. Mycroft pulls the bell cord hanging by the fireplace, and almost instantly the door is opened by the young woman who let John into the house.

“Doctor Watson is leaving,” Mycroft says to her. 

“I’ll let you know as soon as – there’s something to know,” John says to Mycroft with a slight nod. 

“Of course,” Mycroft says. “Goodnight, Doctor Watson … and thank you for coming.”

John nods again, more emphatically, and walks out of the sitting room followed by the young woman. He pauses while she closes the door after them.

“So, what’s your name, then?” he asks, as they walk across the entrance hall to the front door.

“Uhm, Anthea,” she says after a beat of obvious contemplation.

“Anthea,” John says, clearly skeptical. “And you’re Mister Holmes’s … ?”

“Goodnight, John,” Anthea says, swinging the front door open.

“Goodnight, _Anthea_ ,” John grins, tapping the envelope in his hand against his thigh as he strides past her.


	2. Chapter 2

A gray afternoon is sliding into a gray evening as John walks along Baker Street, looking attentively at the house numbers. A black taxi cab swoops out of the light flow of traffic, pulling up at the curb a little way ahead. The rear door of the cab is thrown open; a tall, thin young man with a headful of dark curls and a sweeping dark tweed coat jumps out. He shoves payment at the driver, hurries to the nearest house, and raps the door knocker vigorously. The door is opened by a slight, middle-aged woman. The young man embraces her briefly, and then they both withdraw into the house and the door closes, just as John gets near enough to see that the house is, in fact, number two hundred and twenty-one. 

He approaches, and taps the brass door knocker himself. There’s a pause, and then the door is opened again by the same woman. 

“Hello,” John says with a quick, vivid smile. “I’m John Watson, I’m - ”

“You’ve come about the flat,” she beams. “Sherlock said. Come in, come in.”

John ducks his head in acknowledgement and steps into the house, scuffing his feet on the sisal mat inside the front door. 

“I’m Missus Hudson, I’m Sherlock’s landlady,” she says, fluttering her way up the narrow staircase with John following her. “Oh, yours too, I expect.”

They emerge on the landing, where the nearest doorway is standing open.

“Sherlock? It’s John,” Missus Hudson calls as she leads John into the sitting room.

“Hello,” Sherlock says, turning from his contemplation of the street through one of the two tall windows lighting the room. 

He’s shed his coat – it’s lying discarded over an open steamer trunk full of binders and loose papers – but he’s still wearing his suit jacket. His hair is haloed by the pearly light from outside, and his eyes are piercingly pale in the dimness of the unlit room. His shirt collar is unbuttoned, the soft cloth falling away from his throat and notch between his collarbones. He lifts his chin, regarding John speculatively from under the dark sweep of his eyelashes.

“Hello,” John says with a curt little jerk of his head, and then he crosses the room quickly, offering his hand. “I’m John Watson.”

“I’m Sherlock,” Sherlock says, lifting his own hand languidly to give John’s a brief, light squeeze, “but you already know that.”

“Sorry?” John asks, with a flicker of polite confusion.

“Missus Hudson called me by name,” Sherlock supplies, his eyes fixed on John’s face.

“Yeah, I suppose she did,” John says.

“What do you think, now that you’ve had a look?” Sherlock says.

“What do I think about - ” John says, his expression deliberately composed.

“ – the flat,” Sherlock says, with just the subtlest twitch of amusement. 

“Oh, right,” John says, turning round to consider the sitting room and adjacent kitchen. “Well, it’s a great location, and this could be very nice. Must be expensive, though.”

“Missus Hudson is giving me a discount,” Sherlock says. “She owes me a favor.”

“How much of a favor?” John asks.

“Enough that you’d only have to come across with four hundred pounds a month,” Sherlock says.

“Christ, that is a deal,” John scowls. “Damn it, and it’s a really nice flat, too.”

“You don’t sound pleased,” Sherlock says. 

“No, I just mean – well, you never know if a flat share’s going to work out, in the long term,” John says, looking around with genuine regret.

“I suppose not,” Sherlock says, swaying his weight against the window frame and slipping his hand into his hip pocket. “And I’m not easy to live with.”

“Neither am I,” John says with a smile. 

“I play the violin,” Sherlock says, “and not always between the hours of eight and six – at least, not eight ae em and six pee em. Would that bother you?”

“It would depend on how well you play,” John says.

“Very well indeed,” Sherlock smirks. “And – I don’t always feel like talking.”

“That’s alright,” John says. ”I don’t always feel like listening.”

“What about you, then?” Sherlock asks, his eyes still intent but somehow softer. “What makes you unfit for general cohabitation?”

“I, um, I talk in my sleep,” John says, his eyes flicking away from Sherlock’s, “quite loudly, actually.”

“I see,” Sherlock says gently. “Well, it’s a good thing the other bedroom is upstairs.”

“And I can be – uh, a bit short tempered,” John says. 

For a second Sherlock’s mouth quirks humorously, but then his expression melts into something slighter and softer.

“I’ll try not to be too provoking, then,” he says.

John hums doubtfully, eyebrows raised. There’s a soft chime from under Sherlock’s hand in his hip pocket; he draws out his phone and glances at it. His expression drops abruptly from playful amusement to something like faint dismay.

“I’m sorry, I need to take this,” he says, pushing away from the window and moving past John. “Please, take a look around – poke about.”

John jerks his chin up in acknowledgement. Sherlock goes out of the sitting room and starts down the stairs, but John doesn’t hear the front door open.

“I’m just going to take a look at the room upstairs,” John says to Missus Hudson, who’s elbow deep in the kitchen sink, which is heaped with a promiscuous mix of mugs and plates and Erlenmeyer flasks. 

“Oh, I’ll show you up, shall I?” she asks.

“No, no, you’re busy,” John smiles. “I’ll find it.”

“Straight up the stairs,” Missus Hudson says rather redundantly.

John is already striding out onto the landing. Sherlock is standing on the second last step of the lower staircase, slouching against the wall and staring bleakly at his phone in his hand. As John glances at him, he finally lifts the phone to his ear. 

“It’s me,” he says, his voice low and vibrating. 

John goes swiftly up the other staircase and round the turn of the landing. He opens the only door, revealing a small but very comfortably arranged bedroom, but he doesn’t go in. Instead, he leans as far over the stair rail as he dares, holds his breath, and listens intently. 

“No, someone’s here,” Sherlock is saying, his voice low but clear enough in the confines of the narrow stairway, “looking at the flat.”

There’s a pause, and then Sherlock says,

“Just someone – he got my number from someone else. He seems nice – no, don’t be ridiculous, just _nice_.”

John shakes his head slightly, his mouth taking on a subtle twist. 

“No,” Sherlock says, his voice sharpening slightly. “I don’t – it’s not – look, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

John steps away from the stair rail as he hears Sherlock push away from the wall and start up the stairs. John steps into the bedroom, plucks his phone from his coat pocket, slips the back plate off it and smacks the battery out into his hand. He replaces the back plate and then drops everything into his pocket again. He pulls the closet door open and peers intently at the interior. 

“So what do you think?” Sherlock asks, coming to the open doorway of the bedroom. 

“Very nice,” John says, turning to look at him. “Really, very nice.”

“So you’ll take it,” Sherlock says.

“Well, I mean, I’m not sure a long lease is - ” John begins. 

“Month by month is fine,” Sherlock says. “If we don’t work out, that’s okay.”

“Alright,” John says with a crisp nod and a wide smile. “I just need to - ”

He takes his phone out of his pocket, glances down as he thumbs it, and frowns at the stubbornly blank screen.

“Damn it,” he says. “Look at that, dead as a door nail.”

He tilts the phone, showing Sherlock the incontrovertible proof. 

“Oh, here, use mine,” Sherlock says, slipping his own phone from his hip pocket and holding it out to John. 

“Oh, cheers,” John says.

“I’m pretty sure this window opens all the way out,” Sherlock says, moving past John. 

John thumbs open the _recent calls_ log. He glances up from the screen to Sherlock’s turned back, and then down again to open _calls received_. The most recent entry is labeled _Sebastian_. John glances up again even as he opens the entry. 

“It’s stuck, but I think it’ll come with a bit of - _persuasion_ ,” Sherlock says, forcing the window casement back despite the many layers of paint clogging the hinges. 

_details: Sebastian (555) 32790_ , John’s able to glimpse before Sherlock gives a grunt of triumph and window casement shudders open. John hastily thumbs another number in and lifts the phone to his ear in time to smile at Sherlock as he turns round, brushing paint dust from his hands.

“Sarah? It’s John,” John says when his call is answered. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to cancel for tonight.”

“We don’t _have_ a date for tonight,” Sarah says in John’s ear.

“I know but – I’ve just found a really good flat share and I’m going to move my stuff in right away,” John announces, flashing Sherlock a broad smile. 

“You’re on a case, aren’t you?” Sarah asks quietly.

“Yeah, exactly,” John beams. “Thanks for being so understanding, you’re a star.”

“No, I’m a patsy,” Sarah says. “And don’t forget we _do_ have a date tomorrow night – don’t you dare stand me up.”

“Oh, absolutely,” John says expansively, “see you then.”

He hangs up and holds the phone out to Sherlock. 

“Accommodating girlfriend,” Sherlock says, taking his phone back and turning it over in his hand.

“Um, not really,” John says.

“Not accommodating?” Sherlock says in faint surprise. 

“Oh, no, I mean, not really my girlfriend,” John says. “It’s nothing as – definite, as that.”

“Ah,” Sherlock says with a distinct gleam of approbation.

“What about you?” John asks. “Got a girlfriend?”

“Not really my thing,” Sherlock says. 

“Oh, right, no,” John says, his gaze flickering down the open vee of Sherlock’s shirt collar, to where the first fastened button strains across his narrow chest. “Boyfriend? I mean, just, should I be watching for a sock on the sitting room door?”

Sherlock’s expression flinches through an instant of pure distaste, to settle in a sort of softly confused discomfort.

“No, I – he – it’s - ” he huffs, his eyes anywhere but on John’s face.

The chime of his phone makes him glance down, abruptly scowling. 

“You’re a popular fella,” John smiles. 

Sherlock rounds his eyes and twists away as he answers his phone. 

“What?” he says shortly, and then, “ _what?_ Where? No, I’m – oh, hell. I’ll come – don’t let anyone touch anything.”

He hangs up, turning back towards John. 

“Something’s come up,” Sherlock says, already slipping past him out of the bedroom door. “I have to go out – but, make yourself at home – have Missus Hudson make you some tea.”

He sweeps down the stairs and into the sitting room, John following more sedately. Sherlock swings his coat on and unravels his scarf from one pocket.

“Look at you, rushing about,” Missus Hudson says, coming from the kitchen with a dishtowel in her hand. 

“Be nice to John,” Sherlock says, darting a quick kiss at the air next to her cheek. “John, don’t wait up.”

Sherlock throws a parting glance at John, a look that begins as a smile and then shifts to a slight grimace of indecision, but then Sherlock turns away and hurries down the stairs to the front door. Missus Hudson throws her hands up in vague disapproval as the door opens and bangs shut again. John huffs his breath out, letting his shoulders sag slightly. 

“Well, he’s taken a shine to you,” Missus Hudson says over her shoulder as she goes back into the kitchen. 

“I hope not,” John says lightly, following her as far as the doorway. “I wouldn’t want to cause a problem with his boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Missus Hudson echoes doubtfully. “Sherlock’s got a boyfriend?”

“You don’t – I might have it wrong,” John says with a slight shake of his head. “But I thought – Stephen? Sebastian? Something like that?”

“Well, I’ve certainly never seen him, or heard a word about him,” Missus Hudson says, her mouth pursed disapprovingly. 

“You know, I think I just got the wrong end of the stick,” John says, “my mistake.”

Missus Hudson has already returned her attention to the tiles behind the kitchen sink. John withdraws to the landing outside the sitting room, returns the battery to his phone, and punches in Sebastian’s number. He makes his way slowly down the stairs to the front door, listening to the ring tone chirp over and over and over. He hangs up, and punches the number in a second time. He’s on the street and waving down a passing taxi when he finally tires of the endless repeat of the ring tone, and hangs up.


End file.
